Check-In
by pinestripes
Summary: Roy Mustang has no idea why he is having such a hard time focusing on his work today. Maes Hughes, however, knows exactly what is driving his best friend to distraction. "Kids, huh?" Parental!RoyElrics. Oneshot. Rated for a bit of language.


**Author's Note:**

Love me some Parental!Roy. This is set after Edward joins the military, but a little before the main plot of the series actually starts (i.e. before Liore), so it fits with both the 2003 anime and the manga/Brotherhood.

Fun fact about this fic: I wrote it months ago and liked it quite a bit, which scared me and prompted me to put it away and not look at it for a few months. I then read it again, expecting to find a ton of flaws, but I still liked it. I figured that couldn't be possible, so I put it away for another few months. Finally looked at it again and realized I still liked it. So basically this fic has been more or less done for about 6 months. Facepalm.

As always, dedicated to my sister for being my beta and fellow meme referencer.

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At his office desk, Colonel Roy Mustang suddenly came to the realization that he had not actually read any of the paperwork he had been flipping through for the last ten minutes. He had skimmed it, while rolling his pen between his fingers and tapping his foot against the floor, but he couldn't even recall the general subject of the file.

The officer sighed and put his pen back down on the desk with what was probably more force than necessary. He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms in front of his chest. He stared at the ceiling with a glare that would have set the troublesome paperwork on fire without the assistance of a transmutation circle, if that was possible.

That glare turned onto the office's phone, then to the wall clock, and back to the ceiling again.

Roy realized his foot was tapping once more.

He sighed, picked his pen up, and returned his attention to the files on his desk. After five minutes of flipping the pen between his fingers and rereading the first few lines of the page over and over again, Roy conceded momentary defeat—er, decided to take a break to the lavatory.

His eyes paused on his office phone as he stood.

The rest of his team suddenly seemed very interested in their own work as he began to head out the door, where he almost ran into Lieutenant Hawkeye entering the office. She carried close to her chest yet more paperwork.

"And where are you off to, sir?" the ever-vigilant and incredibly dedicated Lieutenant asked mildly.

Roy gave his most charming smile as he tried to edge around the woman. "Lavatory."

"Hm." Riza stepped aside, but before Roy could flee, she asked in a more sincerely gentle tone, "Have you heard from the Elrics yet?"

As the (likely intentionally) loud paper shuffling in the office suddenly quieted, Roy sighed and shrugged. "Not yet. Fullmetal is probably just trying to piss me off."

"I doubt Alphonse would let him do that."

"Who knows? I'll just have to _remind _Fullmetal of military procedure when they get back," he responded, and then ran for it.

In the lavatory, Roy tried to take his time. He wet and combed his hair. He splashed his face with water. He even checked for stray nose hairs. Finally, he could come up with no more excuses to keep him out of the office any longer—until a perfect solution walked in the door. Bearing pictures.

"Roy!" Lieutenant Colonel Hughes greeted, delighted.

"Maes." Roy smiled, sincerely. He had been busy recently, unable to meet with his best friend, so the surprise meeting was welcome—and Hughes's obsession with showing off pictures of his family would likely delay Roy's return to the office by _at least _fifteen minutes.

And, expectedly, Hughes gushed over Elicia and Gracia for quite some time. Roy didn't listen that closely. He usually did, honestly, but today he just couldn't seem to focus.

Hughes picked up on his friend's state when Roy neglected to answer a question. "You feeling alright? You seem off today."

"Sorry. I'm fine—just tired."

Hughes quirked a brow, apparently evaluating Roy with a best friend's eye and deciding he didn't believe Roy's bull. "Uh-huh."

"Really! Things are just hectic in the office."

"Sure," Hughes replied, and then perked up. "Hey, are the Elrics in town? I thought I might catch up with them while I'm in the East."

Mustang shrugged with a wry smile. "Sorry, you just missed them. They headed out to New Optain earlier this week."

Hughes slumped in disappointment and sighed. "Dammit, I'm never able to catch them. What were they in New Optain for?"

"An investigation," Roy replied, leaning in. "Caught wind that some military officials there were buying up land with possibly alchemically-transmuted gold. I sent Ed in to see if he could get any concrete evidence—and I figured that sending in a state alchemist might be helpful for a little strongarming."

"Oh, yeah—I've heard that case mentioned in the investigations office. Have they found anything yet?"

Roy rolled his eyes and growled, "I don't actually know. Fullmetal has decided he doesn't need to check in with his superior officer when on a mission, even though it's _protocol. _He didn't even call to let me know he and his brother had arrived."

Hughes frowned, looking worried. "Think they're alright?"

"I'm sure they are. Most likely, Fullmetal just forgot. And/or his brother forgot. The other plausible option is that Edward is just ticked at me for some reason. It's exactly something he would do," Roy replied, tapping his foot on the bathroom tile.

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah. The kid is always ignoring protocol and trying to antagonize me. He acts like he's so high and mighty, but when it gets down to it, he's pretty immature." Roy pointed his forefinger at Hughes with all the sternness of a strict school teacher. "He's in for the lecture of a lifetime when he gets back. He needs to understand that a petty squabble is not worth me being unaware of his status. I can't give him help if he won't tell me when he needs it."

"Kids, huh?"

"You've got that—" Roy sighed before stopping mid-sentence. By the look on Hughes's face, his friend was trying very hard not to laugh at him. "What?"

"You've been fidgety and distracted the whole time we've been talking. It makes sense now. You're worried."

Roy blinked in shock. "I'm not worried."

"Oh, you are _so _worried. It's adorable!"

Roy glared at his so-called friend. "I said I'm not worried! Those boys can handle themselves just fine. I'm angry that they haven't called in—that's all."

Sobering up, and taking a still-amused-but-more-sincere tone, Hughes continued, "Roy, I've known you for long enough that I can tell when something is really weighing on you. You're worried about the Elric brothers, and that's that."

Roy crossed his arms petulantly. "So what if I am? They're—what? Thirteen and fourteen? Any decent adult would be concerned for their safety."

"Weren't you the one who _just _said that they can handle themselves? That they just forgot to call in?" Oh, yeah—Hughes was definitely laughing at him again.

"Yes, well—" Roy floundered. "They're still kids, even though they've been through a lot! It's like an instinct to be worried!"

"Yeah, a _paternal _instinct."

With that, Roy spluttered for several seconds, unsure of how to make a comeback. His response ended up being largely incomprehensible: "They—I—_ father _...Fullmetal—damn call—kids— _you, Maes!" _and so on.

Hughes just stared with that dopey grin of his.

Finally, Roy had enough and stomped out of the bathroom, muttering angrily under his breath, letting the door slam behind him, and ignoring Hughes's cheeky call of "Hey, let me know when you're free so we can grab drinks while I'm in town!"

Roy finally made it back to his office, making his subordinates jump with his loud slam of the door and heavy collapse into his desk chair. He felt their eyes on him, including Hawkeye's, but he ignored them to once again pick up his pen to do his paperwork. _Damn Hughes. _

Ten minutes later, the officer had still only managed to fill in the first few lines on the page. Why couldn't he stop tapping his _foot? _He was going to _break this pen in half— _

The phone rang.

Roy slammed his hand down on the receiver and jerked it up to his ear. "This is Colonel Roy Mustang."

"Colonel?" Alphonse's tinny voice came through, sounding timid at the officer's harsh tone. "It's Alphonse."

Roy winced and tried to soften his tone for the younger Elric. "Hello, Alphonse."

Work in the office subtly paused as the Colonel's other subordinates listened in.

"Did you make it to New Optain alright?" Roy continued.

"Yes, sir. We're sorry we didn't check in like we're supposed to; the phone lines were down for the first couple of days we were staying here because of a storm, and then—well, things got a little busy."

That wording with the boy's tone of voice? A cause for concern. "Busy _how, _Al?"

"Oh, nothing too bad! From the start, the officers here were pretty suspicious of Brother's reasons for being in New Optain and hardly left him alone, so we had to keep coming up with ways to give them the runaround while we investigated. We found documents that are pretty foolproof evidence of their deals, including some transmutation circles and materials for making gold."

"So they haven't given you any serious trouble?"

"No, sir. They don't even know we have the evidence."

Roy gave a silent sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, what just _might _have been a sense of relief washing over him. "Well, try and get out of there as soon as you can before they decide they've had enough and try to stop you. The investigations office here needs that evidence before they have sufficient reason to arrest that many officers."

"Brother and I can probably catch the train this evening."

"Where is your brother, by the way? Technically speaking, he's the one who's supposed to be reporting to me. Looks like I'm going to have to give him a lecture on protocol after all."

"Ed's asleep right now. He's exhausted from the last couple of nights we spent getting into the officers' hideout and investigating. We were out really late, and he couldn't sleep in because he couldn't let the people we were investigating know something was up. I told him we should just spread the investigation out longer so he could actually rest, but he didn't listen. He always pushes himself too hard." Despite the exasperation that colored it, Roy could hear what may have been a smile in Al's voice—or the ghost of one, perhaps.

The officer felt his expression softening. "He's lucky he has you to watch out for him."

"And I'm glad you and the team watch out for the both of us," Alphonse laughed. "Ed's too stubborn for me to deal with on my own!"

With a promise to relay the Colonel's instructions to his brother and to get back to East City as soon as possible, Alphonse hung up.

As Roy put the phone back on the receiver, he eyed the rest of his team. Riza was smiling softly, eyes still on the form she was filling out. The rest of the men were working on their various projects—Falman sorting through files, Breda and Havoc doing paperwork, Feury fiddling with a radio. Relaxed shoulders and expressions coupled with the quiet ambient noise of work being done gave a new air of peaceful contentment to the room.

Roy looked back to his desk, eyeing the paperwork there. He resolutely picked up his pen once again and began to fill out the top form.

It seemed he had gotten his second wind.

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**I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you think.**


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